


of all the gin joints in all the world

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Ficathon, gratuitous casablanca references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She will not yet live in a world where there is a Doctor who does not know River Song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of all the gin joints in all the world

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for the fun of the [River Song Ficathon](http://spoiler-song.livejournal.com/426772.html) on LJ. All characters & situations belong to Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, BBC, and their various subsidiaries. The title and references to _Casablanca_ don't belong to me, either.  
>  **A/N** : Spoilers for everything, just in case. This story is for elvenmalka523, who left the prompt, _He/she was so very young and there was no time to explain everything. (possibly River/Nine)_ /.

The Doctor is not supposed to be here today. 

River is on Earth, nineteen-hundred and forty-two, and she's tracking the Nestene Consciousness across the galaxy. She's chased them from planet to planet, system to system, and she's close, so close, to catching them up. 

She's expected him for a while now, honestly, despite the fact that none of this appears in her diary. This is exactly the kind of mess he usually falls right into the middle of, but so far now she's been alone. 

And then, suddenly, just as she ducks into this bar for a quick drink and reconnaissance, there he is, black leather jacket, dark trousers, big ears and sad, old eyes that she'd know anywhere on any face of any person in the universe. He isn't _her_ Doctor, but he is most certainly _the_ Doctor. 

"Of all the gin joints in all the world," she mutters to herself. It seems appropriate; they _are_ in Casablanca, after all. She opens her diary and holds it up in front of her face as she watches him surreptitiously over the top of the pages. 

He's young, so very young: she sees that immediately. This is the Doctor as he was in the days just after the Time War; this is the Doctor in mourning, even more so than usual. He is not yet the man she fell in love with, years ago, years from now. He's still learning, and as she watches him, she thinks of all the things he has yet to discover. Bless him, he probably doesn't even know how to open the TARDIS without the key yet. Worst of all, he will not now know _her_ , who she is, what she's done, what they've done together, and of all the things in the universe that it is possible to fear, this man is what she fears most, to have him look at her with unfamiliar eyes and say, "Who are you?" 

She will not yet live in a world where there is a Doctor who does not know River Song. 

And so it is that when, as inevitably happens, he inadvertently interferes with her investigation just as she was about to locate the Nestene, she positions a wide-brimmed hat atop her mass of curls, slips on some sunglasses, reapplies her hallucinogenic lipstick, and kisses him, her hands gripping the lapels of his black leather jacket as she presses her lips against his. She puts a little more effort into it than she normally would, even though she knows that the effect of the lipstick is immediate. River has no idea who he will see when he looks at her, but at least now when he blinks down at her, confused, and asks for her name, she doesn't feel as though her world has ended. 

"Harmony," she answers quickly, with an amused quirk of her lips. "Harmony Lake." 

He's going to shake his finger at her about that in a few hundred years, she knows. He'll stand there next to the TARDIS console in his bow tie and braces and tug at his tweed jacket and cry, "Harmony! Harmony Lake! Oh, well done, River Song, Melody Pond, well done, excellent way to avoid _spoilers_ ," all the while making that adorably exasperated face that he makes whenever she's done something he considers particularly ridiculous, which is most everything, really. He should know by now-- well, by then, anyway-- that his priceless faces provide an infinite source of motivation for her mischief.

For now, however, he just nods and says, "Nice to meet you, Harmony Lake. Now run." 

"I had a feeling you were going to say that," she grins, taking the hand that he offers her, and off they go. 

"Kissing! Interesting way to say hello," he says, as they dash around a corner and duck into an alley.

"It's always been a personal favorite of mine, yes," she grins. "A terribly difficult habit to break." 

"Also in the habit of tracking Nestenes, are you, Harmony Lake?" he asks, fixing her with a knowing look. 

"Freelancer," she says, and it isn't exactly a lie. She blinks up at him with as much faux doe-eyed innocence as she can muster. "And you? You're not Time Agency, are you?" 

"Drop the act," he says, and she gives him a real smile. "No, I am not _Time Agency_ , and I don't want in on whatever scam you're running. You con artists, you're all the same." 

"Sexy, charming, fun at parties?" she asks, amused, while he crosses his arms over his chest and looks grumpy. Ah, now there's a bit of a preview of the Doctor she knows and loves. Her smile widens, and his frown deepens.

"Wrong on all counts," he says. 

"And you are _so_ wrong about that," she laughs.

The Doctor, her Doctor, has told her before of the fateful year that he tracked the Nestene Consciousness to London. That was the year, of course, that he met Rose Tyler and let her change his life for the better, and River realizes suddenly that she must have had a hand in getting him there. River Song points him in the right direction and off he trots, all unknowing, toward something approaching a better life than the forced loneliness of the isolation he lives in now, just as he did for her, years ago, or, from his point of view, will do. There's a lovely sort of symmetry to that, really. 

There's little time to explain all of it, even if she could, but he's so impossibly young that there's nothing to be said, so she keeps quiet and does her best not to give him any hints that she will know him in his future, that she already knows him, and _intimately_. Still, there are moments during all of occasional investigating and the near-constant running when he looks at her and she can tell that he thinks there's a mystery in the curve of her smile that he would like to solve.

They track the Nestene as best they can, but she knows already that it's a lost cause, that the trail will go cold and off he'll fly, the Doctor in his TARDIS, to London, to Rose Tyler, to Mickey and Jackie and Jack and Martha and Donna and Amy and Rory and Melody Pond, a/k/a Harmony Lake, a/k/a River Song, the woman who murdered him and the woman who married him. 

"Goodbye, Harmony Lake," he says, unlocking the door and stepping into the TARDIS. "I'd tell you to stay out of trouble, but I think that's a lost cause. Have a nice life, at least." 

"Wait! What year are you off to, then?" she asks, even though she already knows the answer. 

"Two-thousand and five," he says, but then he shakes his finger at her. "And you're not to come with me: I work alone." 

"So do I," she lies. "Two-thousand and five?" 

" _Harmony_ ," he says, in exactly the same wonderfully exasperated tone that someday he will say, " _River_." 

"Only making sure I know which years to avoid," she says, eyes twinkling merrily. "I've heard good things about it, though. Tell you what, Doctor, I bet that you're going to have a really excellent year." 

He smiles, then, really smiles, and of the all the things she's seen in her life, all of the beauty the universe has to offer in all the times it has to offer it, the Doctor's smile at this very moment may just be the most beautiful thing she's ever come across. He may not smile often at this point in his life, but oh, when he does, it makes up for it: he lights up like an opera house, and for a moment it feels as if the whole of the universe is alight. 

"Have I met you before?" he asks, and she beams at him, reflecting some of the brilliance of his own smile back at him. 

"Spoilers," she grins, one finger over her lips, and before he can ask her anything further, she presses a button on her vortex manipulator and vanishes. 

Four days later, she's at a dig site on a moon around one of the larger planets in the Scarlet Junction when she hears the welcoming whoosh of the TARDIS landing. 

"Harmony Lake!" the Doctor-- _her_ Doctor-- shouts, striding out of the TARDIS, tugging on his jacket and then waving his arms in the air. "You! You are _impossible_." 

"Oh, sweetie," she laughs, stepping over and smoothing his lapels before pressing a kiss to his lips. "You must remember this." 

"And so I do," he says, the amused frustration fading from his face. "Not an easy day to forget, even with your _special lipstick_." 

"Of all the gin joints in all the world," she quips, and he chuckles. 

"I am glad you walked into mine, River Song," he says, and then rubs his hands together. "Now. What do you say to a little bit of an adventure? I believe I owe you a trip to London." 

"Here's looking at you, kid," she says, and follows him into the TARDIS.


End file.
